He laughed sharply, drowning out her words. “Yes? As a friend, what did you think would happen when you took me there? I’d gaze at those tiny girls and have a sudden revelation? Perhaps give all my worldly goods to the poor and become a monk?”
He sat forward. “Listen, and listen well, my lady—I like who I am and what I do. I’m an unrepentant rake who makes illegal gin. Don’t think you or anyone else can change me—even if I wanted to be changed.”
She pursed her lips and cocked her head, staring at him silently. Anger was rising in her as well.
He returned her stare until the silence seemed to irritate him. “What?”
“You, my lord, are not nearly as reckless—or as bad—as you would have me believe.”
“What in God’s name are you babbling about?”
“Your reputation.” She waved a hand. “Your rakishness. You’ve let all of London think that you left Cambridge on some feckless whim when in fact you left to help your family. You lead others to believe that you live the life of a libertine, without care or worry, when in fact you work for your family’s sake.”
He laughed incredulously. “In case it has escaped your memory, I was in the act of bedding a married woman when we met.”
She looked away, that vision making her even angrier somehow. “I never said you were perfect. Just not as damnable as you let others believe.”
“Is that so?”
She tilted her chin and stared him in the eye. “Yes.”
He smirked nastily. “What about my dear brother’s late wife?”
Her heart began to beat faster. The carriage was so confining, and his temper was a nearly visible haze of red between them. “What about her?”
“The whole world knows I seduced her under my poor brother’s nose, and had she not died in childbirth, along with the babe, no doubt I would’ve fathered his future heir.”
“Did you?” she asked softly.
“Did I what?”
“Did you do all those things the world and your own brother think you did?”
For a moment he stared at her, wild and grief-stricken, and she held her breath, waiting for his answer.
Then he slowly shook his head. “No. God, no.”
She leaned forward. “Then why let everyone believe such an atrocious lie? Why pretend to be worse than you are?”
“I’m not—” he began, but she wasn’t done questioning him yet.
“Why?” she demanded fiercely. “Why continue in this dreadful gin business? You are better than this, Reading.”
“What god gave you the right to sit in judgment over me?” he asked low and awful. “Oh, but I forget: You consider yourself more virtuous than the rest of us mere mortals. You are Lady Perfect, arbitrator of other people’s sins, an incorruptible maiden colder than graveyard granite in January.”
She gasped, unable to speak for a moment. Did he really see her thus? As a chilly, self-righteous virgin?
“How dare you?” she whispered, and couldn’t help the tears that flooded her eyes.
“Damn you.”
Her vision was blurred, so she didn’t see his movement, but she was suddenly across the carriage, half sprawled on his lap.
“I dare,” he muttered, “because I’m selfish and black-hearted and vain. I dare because you are what you are and I am what I am. I dare because I cannot otherwise. I’ve lived too long without bread or wine, crawling desperate in a lonely, barren desert, and you, my darling Lady Perfect, are manna sent directly from heaven above.”
His lips were on hers, urgent and hot. Oh, Lord, she had not known how much she missed his kisses! His mouth tasted of need too long suppressed, but where he might’ve been rough with her, he was instead gentle.
Very gentle.
His lips pressed against hers, his tongue licking at the corners of her mouth.
“Let me,” he pleaded even as she opened her lips.
He canted his face, pulling her closer, his tongue sliding into her mouth. His beard scratched against the soft skin of her chin, but she didn’t care. She suckled his tongue, drawing on it as if it were the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted.
“Let me,” he murmured again, and she felt his broad hand on the bare skin just below her neck.
He stroked her as if gentling a kitten, softly, expertly, his hand drifting lower. All her awareness was centered on that hand, on his fingers drawing nearer to the tip of her breast. Her breasts felt tight and heavy in anticipation, and she waited with bated breath for him to touch her. He bit suddenly at her lower lip, distracting her, and then—oh, heavens!—his fingers slid beneath her bodice.
She gasped, feeling his hot skin as he stroked over her hardened nipple. He spread his hand, trapping the tip between his first and second fingers. When he squeezed, she felt the sudden jolt between her thighs.